Back in the day, if you were a creative type – maybe you were a writer, a painter, a sculptor or perhaps all of the above – the only way to communicate your vision was to struggle through the years and wait for someone else with the purse strings to fund your creative pursuits.

Nowadays, thanks to the web, we can skip the middleman and go straight to displaying our own work in the most public of forums mankind has known to date – the art of freelancing online.

But if you are looking to start a blog or website based around your creative vision – where do you even begin? There’s so much more to freelancing than simply displaying your work and hoping that someone with influence will stop by your page – it’s a complex world of marketing and networking.

Luckily, illustrator and graphic designer, Alex Mathers, has compiled all his practical knowledge about marketing yourself and your work online via his website Red Lemon Club

I have recently been in contact with Alex and was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of his brand new ebook, 10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives.

I have been stumbling my way through the blogging scene for about 18 months now and have along the way read a large number of blogs on the topic of self promotion and blogging in general. I have bought books (both e-books and physical) gone through online courses, met with fellow bloggers and thought myself generally pretty clued in to the blogging scene, however, I cant help but be blown away with the amount of content in Alex’s book.

To put it simply, this eBook is all you need in order to successfully promoting and branding yourself online.

It covers, everything you need to know from the humble beginnings of getting yourself set up, the mindset you need to be successful online right through to using web2.0 promotion tools like Facebook and Twitter (I’m currently working through this guide to set up my own Facebook group, properly)

Do yourself a favour, and get a copy of this book…

10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives.

UPDATE: Interior Images of the residence from New Moon HERE

Myself and two other architecture students went along to see the new vampire come romance movie twilight..

..We made the mistake of going opening day. Aussie kids are currently on their Christmas break and amoungst them, screaming teens, all hungry for the blood (like vampires.. get it?) of teen heart throb, ex- harry potter star, Robert Pattinson or ‘Edward Cullen’ as those who have seen the movie might know him.

Edward’s room.. see more on it here at Apartment therapy

It might come as a surprise to you, that myself and my friends, all in our twenties (and two of us male..) all swooned at one point..

But it probably wasn’t for the same reason as majority of the audience.

I’m talking about the Cullen’s House..

After seeing Manvi’s post for the house featured in twilight over at her blog Mochatini, I decided to do some of my own exploring..

Edward Cullen: “What did you expect? Coffins, and dungeons and moats?”
Bella: “Um..not the moats.”

Well I’m happy to say that there were no coffins, dungeons or moats.. but rather a splendid contemporary home, that’s certainly worth investigating…

The Hoke House is by architect Jeff Kovel via ‘Skylab Architecture’ it’s 4300 squares, built by Metcalf Construction, with Lucy Metcalf as the interior designer and landscaper.

The amazing symmetry and rough floor looks great, and the (perhaps over used) hanging lamp looks great in this living room.

The meals and dining area look warm and inviting, a strong use of timber again, simple tables and furniture used effectively.
Notice the floor to ceiling windows wrapping the kitchen that provide great natural lighting as well as splendid green, forest views.

The contemporary boxy home is well positioned on the site, the architects have taken advantage of the natural sloping landscape and have strategically placed the home so it looks out over the greenery.

It’s the use of timber that really does if for me, the striking middle floor of three level home creates a nice contrast with the industrial grey of the other stories, and again, relates back to it’s site, fitting in nicely with its green forest setting.

Modern, white and pristine bathrooms

Amazing bathroom window/skylight would allows its users to feel very free and open when stripped down and having a shower.

The contemporary feel is continued inside the home. The walls are a tradational modern clean cut white, though the clever use of timber is continued into the home as floorboards and on the stairs.

The house is open and bright and naturally well lit through the obvious use of large and multiple windows.

A bit of a side note, Twilight was a great movie and is definitely worth watching, (i’ve just started the first book also!)
But i’ll leave it up to you to decide which you prefer, the eye candy of Edward Cullen or his home.

Edit!: Also see my interview with Architect — Jeff Kovel Here

24/11/09 UPDATE: The New Moon Home is for sale! Check out more images HERE

]]> http://www.designtavern.com/2008/12/fit-for-a-vampire-the-hoke-house-the-cullen-house-from-twilight-skylab-architecture/feed/ 255 http://www.designtavern.com/2008/12/yar-rassadin-industrial-and-product-designer/ http://www.designtavern.com/2008/12/yar-rassadin-industrial-and-product-designer/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:33:32 +0000 Henry http://designtavern.com/2008/12/11/yar-rassadin-industrial-and-product-designer/ Yar Rassadin from Moscow, Russia is the designer behind the P-bookshelf.

The fusion of an old pendulum clock plus a simple bookshelf makes a bold statement and would look great in any contemporary home.

From the designer..
“The idea of P-bookshelf is a combination of old-time floor pendulum clocks structure and functional shelf for books.
In this way we make ironic combined style and change the meaning of functions.This is the combined product with fifty-fifty distribution between two old ideas.”

I also had to share this with you.. by the same designer, comes this very clever salt and pepper shaker.

I don’t know who decides whether pepper or salt is more evil, but let’s face it, they look great regardless!
(They were made for German company Koizol www.koziol.de)

Visit Yar’s site http://www.rassadin.com/ here

I’m Very excited to present you with the Zaishu by designers Matthew Butler and Helen Punton. The Zaishu isn’t just a stool or piece of furniture, behind it’s lovingly painted slot together sides is an underlying philosophy. The Zaishu represents and reinforces a social understanding and awareness of cultures, how? well it’s designers have travelled the world and have approached over a thousand different people, to hand paint their design.. keeping the ever changing panels fresh and unique. Supplying buyers with their own individualized design.
The fundamentals principles for their design is simple,
“Creativity, participation, responsibility (environment and society) and evolution.”

So, What is a Zaishu?
The Zaishu was designed from the ground up to be a product that responsibly addressed environmental issues whilst encouraging social interaction and creates awareness of other cultures.
This is achieved by using plantation grown pine, water based inks and varnish and the way it flat packs for distribution. We host socially interactive painting workshops around the world to unite creative people and to exchange and evolve ideas.

The name Zaishu actually comes from a mistake in translation. What was meant to be Zaisu a name for a traditional Japanese seat, but an accidental ‘h’ was added. However, this says Butler, “sets a good tone for the organic way we run the company – relying on feeling and instinct rather than what is technically correct.”

The core of Zaishus success revolves around the very fact that it is a collaborative project, rather than a designed product.
Matthew and Helen have worked with over 1000 different people over the last 4 years from many different countries and cultures to create the artwork that adorn the Zaishus slot together sides.
“We find that collaboration helps us to grow ideas and expand possibilities rather than thinking my idea is better than someone elses or that I can do everything.”

Hand painted Zaishus are created by artists as diverse as stencil artists from Melbourne, tribal artists from India and Fiji and street poster artists from Berlin. “We currently have an exhibition in Amsterdam with Zaishus painted by a group of Dutch artists. A lot of these projects are not for profit and support a worthy cause such as a school in Fiji or children affected by war in Uganda.

Also available are commercially made Zaishus that are hand printed in small batches at Matthew and Helen’s coastal studio. The designs and patterns have been created by textile designers and artists that the pair work with.

Who Developed the Zaishu?

As noted earlier, the Zaishu is by Australian based designers, (not far from Byron Bay for the aussies tuning in) Matthew Butler and Helen Punton, a little about the duo -

Matthew Butler – born in Australia, currently living and working from Yamba – a quiet little town on the coast near Byron Bay NSW. Trained in Architecture, Industrial Design, sculpture and gained experience as production manager for Tom Dixon in London during mid 1990’s.

Helen Punton - studied Graphic Design in Australia and designed the signage for Melbourne’s ‘Metlink’ public transport system and exhibit design for the Melbourne zoo. Helen has lived and worked in Berlin for several years writing and directing short films and curating exhibitions such as the Australian Design Exhibition ‘Modernwhite’ and ‘Sharpies’ photography at the Australian embassy in Berlin in 2005.

and just to give you a bit of an insight into the lives of these two, how’s this for an adventure, in the next couple months Matthew “will be cycling around Patagonia and visiting craftspeople along the way, [Whilst]Helen is climbing the Inca trail in Peru. We hope to see some innovative techniques and ideas that we can work with.”

To up and coming designers Matthew offers this, “Forget the rules, create your own context to work within. ie: don’t design a ‘chair’ but design a ‘platform to support the human body’.”

www.zaishu.com

A huge thanks to Matthew for and Helen for sharing with us their obviously very personal and special design, the zaishu.
Cheers from the Design Tavern!

Can you imagine a window..? A window that you could carry with you in your pocket and could give you the power to search for anything and everything you see, when you see it?

Well so did Mac Funamizu Born and bred Tokyo Japan, in-house web/graphic and industrial designer.
“This is what I wish the internet search will be able to do with a mobile device in the NEAR future. Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, WiFi, google map (hopefully google earth), google search, image search… all in one device. Like this way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot.”

“You can even see flowers that are not actually blooming.”

I was so excited when I saw this, it’s an amazing concept and I cant believe that It hadn’t been though of earlier..!
…and Mac has presented it amazingly well. Though if you read his blog, Mac is quite modest when it comes to his own designs, considering himself to be mediocre compared to the other designers out there.
It’s just not true!

 Although just a prototype, Mac hopes for the mobile search device to one day become a reality, but accepts that “it’ will take some years… I just draw the things I’d like to one day see in the future”
The possibilities for this device are endless, and Mac has only began to uncover its potential.

“Getting data of a weather forecast.”

Mac’s inspiration comes from all around him, and freely admits that he’s “easily inspired,” it is when he feels an inconvenience in his everyday life that he works to find a solution. Not to mention the likes of other designers such as Naoto Fukasawa, Jonathan I’ve and Josef-Muller Brockmann

“When you wonder what the scene you’re looking at was like in the past, you can see it.”

(an interesting read is this! Mac’s approach to problem solving and design!)

“Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building.
Well, it doesn’t have to be a building, but it can be any object you see. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc. But as a designer myself, I hope it’s able to tell me a name of a font of the type I see, the size, color (in RGB), and so on.”

“It’s got a scanner built in, so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc. It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web.”

Mainly because I don’t usually care about nutrition when I eat, this kind of function would be helpful for people like me.

What Mac loves most about his job is when his clients are “blown away” by his ideas.. and his ideas are big! At the moment he is “designing something fun again.” One is a desktop gadget and the other is a browser extension.
If his previous designs are anything to go off we won’t be disappointed! and stay tuned for “the most popular items, re-rendered” in a “best of 2008″

Indoor guide: Works in a building, airport, station, hospital, etch.

Mac also has his own full throttle approach, to up and coming designers he offers this -
If you have an ace up your sleeve, just don’t keep it long. If you keep it for too long, it’ll go rotten. Just show everything you have to people, listen to what they say. You’ll be able to create something much better, to learn how to show your ideas to people, and to make your community.

“This might be off-topic, but it would be nice if it could work in sync with Google Maps like this.”

Mac Funamizu
http://petitinvention.wordpress.com/
http://www.behance.net/mac_fun

A personal thanks to Mac for supplying us with this interview and allowing me to share your amazing ideas.
From the whole Design Tavern, Cheers!